Crowdsourced research digital humanities at oxford summer. Search engines, because of how they organize information, allow us to make serendipitous connections between information we might not otherwise make, brumfield told a duke audience. Ben brumfield software consultant specializing in crowdsourcing, textual encoding, and linked data for the glam sector. Fromthepage is free software that allows volunteers to transcribe handwritten documents online. Nov 21, 20 november 20th, 20, duke university one of the most popular applications of crowdsourcing to cultural heritage is transcription. Download it once and read it on your kindle device, pc, phones or tablets. Their product, fromthepage, is a collaborative transcription platform for handwritten historical documents used by libraries, archives, and museums worldwide including the stanford university archives and the british. Crowdsourced research digital humanities at oxford. Fromthepage, our opensource crowdsourcing platform, serves libraries and archives from stanford university archives to the alabama department of archives and history. Crowdsourcing transcription with open source software. Nov 21, 20 software engineer ben brumfield speaks at duke university wednesday, nov. Released as the opensource tool fromthepage,it has since been used by libraries, museums, and universities to transcribe literary drafts, military diaries, herpetology field notes, and punk rock fanzines.
Ben has been covering crowdsourced transcription technologies on his blog since 2007. The digital archivist crowdsourcing cultural heritage. Users can discuss difficult writing or obscure words within a page to refine their transcription. Ben worked in houston during his senior year at rice university with a software company where he met his finance, sara carlstead, who is a software engineer. Collaborative transcription project southwestern university. Thanks to our growing connectivity, it is now easier than ever. Crowdsourcing our cultural heritage digital research in the. The resulting text is hosted on the web, making documents easy to read and search. Final report 3 each of these platforms has gaps in functionality that may need to be addressed through further software development or by passing their output. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading crowdsourcing our cultural heritage digital research in the arts and humanities.
Ben is the creator of the fromthepage crowdsourcing platform and has maintained a weblog about crowdsourced manuscript transcription at since 2007. Patrick lewis is the pi on this project, whitney smith, tony curtis, and jeff dycus are editors and technologists at the kentucky historical society. Opportunities for failure abound, especially in projects like crowdsourced transcription that require such a large investment into digitization and software development up front, but which are often justified by eventual cost savings. Ben brumfield founded the cultural heritage crowdsourcing platform fromthepage in 2005 and has been covering developments within crowdsourced manuscript transcription since 2007. It is now available free to others who want to transcribe handwritten documents online. Two state archivesone with deep experience in crowdsourcing and the other without share successes and lessons realized from projects designed to advance large transcription projects while engaging the public with the history of world war i during the centennial. Curran index a project funded by the research society for victorian periodicals to produce an interactive version of the curran index. Ben brumfields presentation on crowdsourcing transcription tools at the midwest archives conference fall symposium 20. The decade in crowdsourcing transcription crowdsourcing week. Crowdsourcing can take place on many different levels and across various industries. Software engineer ben brumfield speaks at duke university wednesday, nov. In addition to crowdsourcing for public history, brumfield labs has collaborated with scholars on digital scholarly edition projects including the digital austin papers and the civil war governors of kentucky digital documentary edition.
Easy to index and annotate subjects within a text using a wikilike markup. Chans pedigree is in silicon valley working as a software engineer and web developer at a string of startups before striking out on his own. Crowdsourcing our cultural heritage digital research in the arts and humanities kindle edition by ridge, mia. While crowdsourcing has been a catchphrase in libraries for almost a decadethe first instance of the term was in wired in 2006 by writer jeff howeits taken much longer for the concept to be embraced in cultural heritage institutions such as archives, special collections, historical societies, and museums. Crowdsourcing our cultural heritage meets that challenge very effectively. In 2012 he began his own company, brumfield labs, llc along with his wife. Ben is the creator of the fromthepage crowdsourcing platform and has maintained a weblog about crowdsourced manuscript transcription at.
Fromthepage is a wikilike application for crowdsourcing transcription of. Ben brings deep technical expertise in the area of digital documentary editions. Crowdsourcing our cultural heritage digital research in. Many thanks to ben brumfield and his tireless work making fromthepage, simply the finest crowdsourcing manuscript transcription software on the planet. Your first crowdsourcing project oclc contentdm user group. The software, called fromthepage, was developed by austin resident ben brumfield to enable his family to jointly transcribe his greatgreatgrandmothers diary. Ben brumfield and mia ridge, wellcome library transcribing recipes project. These tasks are normally conducted by either members of a software enterprise or people contracted by the enterprise. Give your people a powerful crowdsourcing software platform to voice their ideas, vote on them, and have the most important ideas bubble to the top.
Crowdsourcing is the practice of engaging a crowd or group for a common goal often innovation, problem solving, or efficiency. The word crowdsourcing itself is a portmanteau of crowd and outsourcing, and was coined in 2006. Since ocr software doesnt recognize handwriting, human volunteers. The crowdsourced research workshop considers the opportunities of collaborative research methods, particularly crowdsourcing, in the context of digital humanities. The digital humanities at oxford summer school offers training in digital humanities at the university of oxford. Crowdsourcing is a sourcing model in which individuals or organizations obtain goods and services, including ideas and finances, from a large, relatively open and often rapidlyevolving group of internet users. Ben brumfield grain merchandiser at cardinal ethano. Prior to joining brumfield labs, sara carlstead brumfield spent 17 years as a software engineer with ibm. He has seventeen years experience as a professional software engineer, including a dozen years building software for nonprofit organizations, from libraries to genealogical organizations. It is an open call for participation in any task of software development, including documentation, design, coding and testing. Ben brumfield founded the cultural heritage crowdsourcing platform fromthepage in 2005 and has been covering developments within.
Their product, fromthepage, is a collaborative transcription platform for handwritten historical documents used by libraries, archives, and museums worldwide including the stanford. Sessions ive participated in have developed from the basic what is crowdsourcing in 2009 to the more practical how do you find and motivate volunteers in 2011. It is now available free to others who want to transcribe handwritten documents online a new trend known as crowdsourcing transcription. Id like to draw in pretty deeply on one best practice. Marcus thielking is the cofounder of skobbler, a leading provider of mobile mapbased solutions. View ben brumfields profile on linkedin, the worlds largest professional community. Feb 01, 2010 this feature is not available right now. Now instead of hiring a contractor or numerous meetings, you can tap into the furthest reaches of your network with ideascales cloudbased software solution and gather ideas, suggestions, and information from a vibrant and active. Simply the finest crowdsourcing manuscript transcription software on the planet. Crowdsourcing transcription of digital materials is a powerful way to engage the broader. Ben brumfield, in a talk presented in 20, demonstrated that there were thirty. The company is a digital humanities software consulting company specializing in manuscript transcription and digital scholarly editing.
Alumni spotlight ben william brumfield class of 1992. Brumfield labs is a digital humanities software consultancy specializing in crowdsourced manuscript transcription, digital scholarly editing, iiif, and adjacent fields. Crowdsourcing, on the site thatcamp ahamla right now seven years ago, at the first thatcamp aha, we had a rollicking session on crowdsourcing led by two experts in the field. Technological advances in everything from product design software to digital. Brumfield, a software engineer based in austin, texas, has expedited the digital transcription of handwritten documents ranging from naval weather logs to travel diaries with his online crowd sourcing platform fromthepage. We also want to thank the graduate research assistants. Staff engineer august 2000 to march 2012 austin, texas. It is powered by new technologies, social media and web 2. Facebook gives people the power to share and makes the world more open and connected.
Crowdsourcing in the digital humanities ucl discovery. View benjamin brumfields profile on linkedin, the worlds largest professional community. Sep 27, 20 ben brumfield s presentation on crowdsourcing transcription tools at the midwest archives conference fall symposium 20. Ben brumfield, did a great job at demonstrating his platform, which provides a clean and simple interface for viewing, transcribing, and. Sara brumfield and ben brumfield are partners in brumfield labs. The opensource crowdsourcing platform serves libraries and archives from stanford university archives to the alabama department of archives and history.
I think that range of perspectives should lead to an interesting discussion, and hope that other. Source thoughts, opinions, and ideas from your employees, customers, and partners. Sara brumfield brumfield labs, creators of fromthepage usa, shane huddleston oclc usa, ben brumfield brumfield labs, creators of. November 20th, 20, duke university one of the most popular applications of crowdsourcing to cultural heritage is transcription. Crowdsourcing seems to be a favorite thatcamp session idea, appearing in at least half a dozen of the thatcamps held since 2008. Their product, fromthepage, is a collaborative transcription platform for handwritten historical. Institutions like stanford university archives and the british library have used the system to collaborate with volunteer communities to transform scanned historic documents into machinereadable, humanaccessible electronic texts. Crowdsourcing software development or software crowdsourcing is an emerging area of software engineering. Second, the tool is tightly integrated with familysearch, the lds churchs database of genealogical material.
Thanks to ben brumfield, we may soon be googling our way through byzantine records and medieval manuscripts. The best practice i would like to talk about today is turning the product of the crowdsourcing effort back to the volunteer. Software consultancy specializing in crowdsourcing, manuscript transcription, digital editions, and engagement tools for scholars, libraries, archives, and museums. I began making a list, but then came across ben brumfields excellent talk and. At duke, brumfield discussed the future implications of crowdsourced transcription for the academic community. Software development for digital humanities curran index a project funded by the research society for victorian periodicals to produce an interactive version of the curran index. Destination page number search scope search text search scope search text. Join facebook to connect with ben brumfield and others you may know. Civil war governors of kentucky digital documentary edition. He has a ba in computer science and linguistics from rice university. Crowdsourcing the great war in state records ben w.
In 2005, he began developing one of the first webbased manuscript transcription systems. Pybossa is the ultimate crowdsourcing framework to analyze or enrich data that cant be processed by machines alone. Crowdsourced transcription projects and iiifs role supporting. Participants can choose the challenges theyd like to support from unilevers brands, submit their unique ideas, and then use the global. Crowdsourcing our cultural heritage digital research in the arts and humanities kindle edition by mia ridge, mia, ms ridge. Discussion of factors for choosing a crowdsourcing tool, with screenshots and analysis of scripto, the bentham transcription desks, the nara transcribr drupal module, zooniverses scribe, and live demos of the hosted tools virtual transcription laboratory. Ben brumfield is an independent software developer in austin, texas. Prior to brumfield labs, he spent eleven years leading software development teams building fundraising and constituent engagement solutions for nonprofit clients at convio, inc. Thanks to ben brumfield, we may soon be googling our way through. Discussion of factors for choosing a crowdsourcing tool, with screenshots and analysis of scripto, the bentham transcription desks, the nara transcribr drupal module, zooniverses scribe, and live demos of the hosted tools virtual. On the other hand, some institutions have decided its not worth it, especially if they have to write their own software.
Fromthepage is software for transcribing documents and collaborating on transcriptions with others. Software development for digital humanities brumfield labs. Ben brumfield, collaborative manuscript transcription. Spigits advanced crowdsourcing technology makes it possible for unilever to use the foundry ideas platform to collaborate with innovators, discover new solutions, and help to build a better future. Ben brumfield partner brumfield labs, llc linkedin.
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